Like Father, Like
by Natalie3
Summary: What if Julian hadn't died has a baby? How would Lex's 'destiny' have been changed? PG13 for a very small amount of bad language, nothing to get too upset about.


Disclaimer: Not mine. ::snuffle:: At least I get to borrow them from time to time.  
  
This is a what-if...  
  
What if Julian hadn't died as a baby? What if he had grown up? How would everyone's life have been a little different?  
  
By the by, I'm assuming that Julian would also have taken on a nick-name, and (following in tradition) I figured it might start with 'L' so I pulled the second syllable of his name out and made it into his nick-name. I refer to him almost exclusively as 'Lee.' (Just telling people now, to avoid any confusion later on!)  
  
  
  
Like Father, Like...  
  
  
  
"Come on! We're going to be late!" Lionel Luthor's voice echoed as he bellowed up the long winding staircase. "Lee!"  
  
Lex casually crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back against the doorframe, amused at his father's impatience, but sympathetic with the young cause of it.  
  
"I'm coming!" Lee's voice sounded strained. They could hear the beat of his footsteps as he ran down the halls towards the stairs.  
  
Lionel Luthor grunted with impatience and turned for the door, angry and abrupt, his long dark coat flaring out behind him like a cape.  
  
Julian 'Lee' Richard Luthor made a remarkably uncoordinated entrance, missing the first step and flying down the rest. He crashed at the landing with a yelp, and rolled over onto his back, clutching his knee, long red hair flying.  
  
Lex was halfway up to the landing when his brother's eyes opened.  
  
"Fuck! My toes."  
  
"Now, that would bring a truly fascinating mental picture to mind if I wasn't assuming that those are two separate thoughts." Lex knelt down next to him and carefully bent and unbent his knee.  
  
"Gross, Lex! OW!"  
  
"Thanks, I was just about to ask you if that hurt. Does this hurt?" He pressed slightly below the kneecap.  
  
"Only a little," Lee answered.  
  
"I think you've managed to sprain your knee," Lex told him.  
  
"What is it now?" Lionel grouched from the doorway.  
  
"Lee fell, he's hurt his leg, and he needs a doctor."  
  
"Do not!" Lee protested, annoyed. "I'm not a baby!" His blue eyes narrowed.  
  
"Yes, Lex, don't baby him. Come along, both of you."  
  
"Dad, he needs to stay off that leg. If he overuses it now, it will make things worse later on."  
  
"Let the boy decide. Lee?"  
  
"I'm fine," he snapped, and glared at his brother.  
  
Lex held his hands up in a mock surrender. "Fine." He stepped back and watched, unsympathetic, as his brother flailed around, trying to regain his feet. After nearly fifteen seconds of this painful performance, he stretched out one hand and hoisted Lee to his feet.  
  
"When we get there, choose a wall and stay there," he said grimly. "Try to keep as much of your weight as possible on the other leg."  
  
Lee didn't answer, only leaned against his brother as they entered the limousine. It was a silent, uncomfortable trip. Lionel's disapproving stare wavered between his two sons, but rested more often on the only Luthor there who still knew how to limp.  
  
Lex was tired after the reception, and found himself falling to sleep more easily than usual that night.  
  
He couldn't have said, later, whether it was the sudden light, or the very slight rat-scratchy noise that banished him from dreamland's shores and made him sit up in bed, still blinking, and call in unquavering tones, "Who's there?"  
  
The door rasped back open on badly oiled hinges, and Lee stood silhouetted in the dim light of the hall. He needed a haircut, Lex realized absent-mindedly.  
  
His brother clutched the edge of the door and swung to-and-fro, most of his weight resting on the doorknob, his blue eyes dark with ill-concealed fear, as though awaiting judgment.  
  
"Lee?" Lex rubbed his eyes in a pantomimed sleepy astonishment. "It's after three in the morning. What are you doing up?"  
  
"I'm sorry..." It was a child's voice, a child's fear.  
  
"No, I'm just..." Just what? Tired? Confused? Worried about how to handle what seemed to be a possible traumatic moment?  
  
"I couldn't sleep..." His words seemed to surround another meaning. His eyes were immersed in the remnants of a familiar terror. Don't turn me away, they seemed to beg.  
  
"Nightmares?" Lex went out on a well-known limb.  
  
Lee nodded. "When I woke up, I wasn't sure...I thought..."  
  
"Yeah, dreams can seem pretty real sometimes." Lex threw out the common phrase and climbed out of bed. "Come on. Let's get an after-midnight snack."  
  
Lee didn't try to take his hand as they began to navigate the dark hall together; he was too old for such things, Lex supposed, and yet the trusting way he followed his older brother filled him with the same sense of responsibility. He could tell how close Lee was behind him by the sound of his unsteady tread as the boy tried to put as little weight as possible on the injured leg.  
  
"What to tell me about the dream?" Lex asked, turning back to face him.  
  
His brother chewed hard on his lower lip, seriously considering the question.  
  
"You don't have to," Lex said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.  
  
There was a soft laugh before he asked, "This is real, right?" Lee's voice hovered at the edge of hysteria. "You're real."  
  
"Last time I checked." Gentle flippancy; keep things light. Lee was obviously disturbed in mind at the moment.  
  
"I dreamt that you were dead." His voice was dead flat, no intonation in sight.  
  
Lex caught his breath, and quickly reclaimed his composure. "And you just came by to check on me?"  
  
Lee suddenly launched himself at him, wrapping his arms around him in an awkward and painful hug. "You're the only one who loves me," he choked.  
  
Uncertain, Lex stroked his brother's hair and tried to think of something comforting and contradicting to say. He opened his mouth, but found nothing suitable in it. Suddenly a new idea took terrible and bizarre shape in his mind with breathtaking clarity.  
  
"How did I die, Julian?" He used his brother's full name, and neither noticed the discrepancy. "How did I die in your dream?"  
  
"Dad." Julian spat the word out, then resumed sobbing.  
  
At first, Lex waited for the rest of the answer. It took him a surprisingly long time to realize that that was it. Dad. He was dead; Dad was involved. Maybe the idea of dream-analysis wasn't so foolish.  
  
"It's all right," he soothed. "I'm alive, Dad's asleep, and I know where the cook stores the leftovers. Everything will be fine."  
  
Tear-stained blue-eyes were rubbed surreptitiously, and Lee nodded. In the odd lighting, his red hair looked somber, and he seemed very young, and very frail in Lex's eyes.  
  
With a faint grinned, he sat down on the banister. "C'mon!"  
  
"You'll break your neck!" Lex answered, feeling himself split in two. Half of him insisted on being the responsible adult in this scenario. The other half clamored to be allowed to fly down the stairs too.  
  
Lee reached the bottom first by an enormous margin, due to his alternate method of transport.  
  
"I swear," Lex huffed as he reached the bottom, "insanity runs in this family."  
  
His brother didn't laugh. "Did you ever have nightmares, Lex?"  
  
"I don't remember," he lied.  
  
Over milk, sandwiches, sugar-cookies, apple-juice, popcorn, and Jell-O, the shadow of Lee's nightmare left him, and the child Lex tucked into bed was asleep, almost before his head touched the pillow.  
  
"Sleep tight," Lex said softly, and crept away to his own sleepless bed.  
  
Lionel looked up as his older son entered his sanctum sanctorum, his office. "What is it Lex?" he asked. "It must be something important to bring you here at such an early hour," he added sardonically.  
  
His son ignored that last part, refusing to point out that he was usually up by six thirty these days, and had been for a while. "I'm worried about Lee," he said quietly.  
  
"Lex, his leg will be fine. Give it a couple of weeks, I know that the reception made things harder, but the fact is he's going to be tested and..."  
  
"It's not his leg that I'm worried about. I know it'll heal. I'm worried about him."  
  
"I'm not going to sit here and play guessing games, Lex."  
  
"He has nightmares."  
  
"So did you. You survived."  
  
"Do you really need to destroy two people's childhood?"  
  
"What are you saying? That I didn't hug you enough when you were little, and it's left you traumatized?"  
  
"You know exactly what I mean, Dad."  
  
Lionel slowly tapped the ends of his long fingers together. "Lex, I run a business, not a charity. If I give up an heir, what will I gain? What can you give me that I don't have, want, and can't procure for myself?"  
  
"My whole-hearted cooperation, for one thing. We both know how things will play out if things continue as they are. No one's forgotten Leo Luthor."  
  
Lionel's eyes narrowed at the mention of his father. "Don't be sure that the ending would be the same," he said, his voice dangerous.  
  
"That wasn't a threat, Dad; it was a statement of fact. And whatever the final outcome, it would be bad for LuthorCorp. We can avoid that."  
  
He seemed to consider it. "What exactly is it you want me to do with Lee?"  
  
"Leave him be. Let him grow up and live his life however the hell he pleases."  
  
Lionel studied his son's profile. Yes, Lex knew better than to appear anxious. His face was calm and his hands were relaxed, neither clenched nor fidgeting. Lee hadn't yet learned that. If Lex had his way, he never would.  
  
"Do you realize, Lex, what your whole-hearted cooperation would entail?"  
  
"I don't care, I just want Lee out of all of this."  
  
There was the danger. Lex was too much like his mother, too ready to throw himself away for another person. Lee might be less inclined for it. Then again, he might be more inclined towards it. There was no way of knowing now. And if he could truly keep Lex at his side, he could drill out that annoying tendency.  
  
He nodded. "Jacta est alea."  
  
Lex smiled faintly. "The die is cast."  
  
  
Only a week had passed before another son threw open the same door to Lionel's office, but this time it was Lex who looked up from behind the large desk.  
  
"What happened to you, Lex?" Lee stared at him from the doorway.  
  
"What are you talking about?" he asked carefully.  
  
"Suddenly you're always with Dad," Lee cried, "You're always...You're even starting to talk like him, act like him. What's happened Lex? Will you start speaking Latin at me too?"  
  
Lex smiled grimly. "Exitus acta probat. Do you know what that means?"  
  
"Dad says it often enough. The end justifies the means." Lee frowned and hobbled across the room to lean on the desk. "What end are you justifying? What could possibly be worth becoming the next Lionel?" Unspoken words fell between them.  
  
"I have work to do, Julian. I'll talk to you after dinner tonight."  
  
His younger brother froze at the sound of his full name. "Dad really did kill you, didn't he..." he whispered.  
  
Lex looked back down at some of the papers on his desk.  
  
"Does it have to be in Latin before you'll listen?" Lee picked up a pad of paper and pen that Lex kept near the phone and scribbled on it. Flinging it onto the paper's Lex was looking at, he began his painful way back to the door.  
  
His brother's older voice stopped him in his unsteady tracks. "I agree."  
  
The boy glanced back at him in puzzlement, then shuffled out of the room.  
  
Lex carefully tore off the page that Lee had written on and looked at it briefly before crumpling into a ball and tossing it into the trash.  
  
The message slowly slid down towards the bottom of the wastebasket, the words now barely legible: Corruptio optimi pessima. - The corruption of the best is the worst of all.  
  
  
Finis  
  
Reviews are so much FUN! Really, they are! 


End file.
